Wellcome Trust backs counterfeit drug analysis project

The Wellcome Trust has awarded £473,000 ($737,000) in funding to researchers in the UK and Sweden to create a low-cost instrument that can screen medicines for quality and authenticity.

The overall aim is to develop a battery-powered, briefcase-sized system that can be deployed by regulatory authorities, law enforcement and pharmaceutical wholesalers in low-income countries plagued by counterfeit and substandard medicines.

The aim is to have a first-generation device ready for commercialisation within the next two years.

The project will involve scientists from King's College London and the University of Lund and will focus on the use of quadrupole resonance (QR) spectroscopy, a technique that uses radio waves to study the chemical structure of solid materials.

QR spectroscopy is akin to the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology used in medical imaging and has been used to unambiguously identify more than 10,000 different chemical substances.

The technology is used in pharmaceutical quality control and other applications such as explosives detection. However, currently available instruments are too bulky to be used in the field, and carry a hefty price tag.

That is a pity, because QR is ideally suited for the analysis of nitrogen, chlorine or bromine, sodium and potassium compounds, a group that includes over 80 per cent of all drugs, according to The Wellcome Trust.

"QR can detect signals through multiple layers of, for example, cardboard, glass, plastic and/or wood, eliminating the need to remove drugs from their packaging prior to the analysis," according to Dr. Kaspar Althoefer from the Division of Engineering at King's, who will lead the programme.

The non-destructive nature of the analysis means that any drug that is given the all-clear can be returned to the shelf or passed safely to the patient. Meanwhile, samples that fail the test can be retained for further testing or for use as evidence in future criminal proceedings.

Other systems are available for use in the field in developing countries, notably the Global Pharma Health Fund's suitcase-sized Minilab which makes use of thin layer chromatography and other simple tests, which is fairly cheap and also available via a donation scheme.

Handheld Raman and FT-IR scanners from Thermo Fisher are also being deployed in some countries, notably Nigeria, while the Swiss Pharmelp consortium is also trying to develop a low-cost instrument based on capillary electrophoresis for testing medicine quality.


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